Heraclitus of Ephesus (/ˌhɛrəˈklaɪtəs/;[1]Greek: Ἡράκλειτος ὁ ἘφέσιοςHērákleitos ho Ephésios; c. 535 – c. 475 BC) was a pre-SocraticGreek philosopher, and a native of the city of Ephesus,[2] then part of the Persian Empire. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the apparently riddled[3] and allegedly paradoxical[4] nature of his philosophy and his stress upon the needless unconsciousness of humankind,[5] he was called "The Obscure" and the "Weeping Philosopher".

Heraclitus was famous for his insistence on ever-present change as being the fundamental essence of the universe, as stated in the famous saying, "No man ever steps in the same river twice"[6] (see panta rhei below). This is commonly considered to be one of the first digressions into the philosophical concept of becoming, and has been contrasted with Parmenides statement that "what is-is" as one of the first digressions into the philosophical concept of being. As such, Parmenides and Heraclitus are commonly considered to be two of the founders of ontology. Scholars have generally believed that either Parmenides was responding to Heraclitus, or Heraclitus to Parmenides, though opinion on who was responding to whom changed over the course of the 20th century.[7] Heraclitus' position was complemented by his stark commitment to a unity of opposites in the world, stating that "the path up and down are one and the same". Through these doctrines Heraclitus characterized all existing entities by pairs of contrary properties, whereby no entity may ever occupy a single state at a single time. This, along with his cryptic utterance that "all entities come to be in accordance with this Logos" (literally, "word", "reason", or "account") has been the subject of numerous interpretations.

The main source for the life of Heraclitus is Diogenes Laërtius, although some have questioned the validity of his account as "a tissue of Hellenistic anecdotes, most of them obviously fabricated on the basis of statements in the preserved fragments".[8] Diogenes said that Heraclitus flourished in the 69th Olympiad,[9] 504–501 BC. All the rest of the evidence—the people Heraclitus is said to have known, or the people who were familiar with his work—confirms the floruit. His dates of birth and death are based on a life span of 60 years, the age at which Diogenes says he died,[10] with the floruit in the middle.

Heraclitus was born to an aristocratic family in Ephesus, in the Persian Empire, in what is now called present-day Efes, Turkey. His father was named either Blosôn or Herakôn.[9] Diogenes says that he abdicated the kingship (basileia) in favor of his brother[3] and Strabo confirms that there was a ruling family in Ephesus descended from the Ionian founder, Androclus, which still kept the title and could sit in the chief seat at the games, as well as a few other privileges.[11] How much power the king had is another question. Ephesus had been part of the Persian Empire since 547 and was ruled by a satrap, a more distant figure, as the Great King allowed the Ionians considerable autonomy. Diogenes says that Heraclitus used to play knucklebones with the youths in the temple of Artemis and when asked to start making laws he refused saying that the constitution (politeia) was ponêra,[12] which can mean either that it was fundamentally wrong or that he considered it toilsome. Two extant letters between Heraclitus and Darius I, quoted by Diogenes, are undoubtedly later forgeries.[13]

With regard to education, Diogenes says that Heraclitus was "wondrous" (thaumasios, which, as Socrates explains in Plato's Theaetetus and Gorgias, is the beginning of philosophy) from childhood. Diogenes relates that Sotion said he was a "hearer" of Xenophanes, which contradicts Heraclitus' statement (so says Diogenes) that he had taught himself by questioning himself. Burnet states in any case that "... Xenophanes left Ionia before Herakleitos was born."[14] Diogenes relates that as a boy Heraclitus had said he "knew nothing" but later claimed to "know everything".[15] His statement that he "heard no one" but "questioned himself", can be placed alongside his statement that "the things that can be seen, heard and learned are what I prize the most."[16]

Diogenes relates that Heraclitus had a poor opinion of human affairs.[9] He believed that Hesiod and Pythagoras lacked understanding though learned[17] and that Homer and Archilochus deserved to be beaten.[18] Laws needed to be defended as though they were city walls.[19]Timon of Phlius is said to have called him a "mob-reviler". Heraclitus hated the Athenians and his fellow Ephesians, wishing the latter wealth in punishment for their wicked ways.[20] According to Diogenes Laërtius: "Finally, he became a hater of his kind (misanthrope) and wandered the mountains [...] making his diet of grass and herbs."

Heraclitus' life as a philosopher was interrupted by dropsy. The physicians he consulted were unable to prescribe a cure. Diogenes lists various stories about Heraclitus' death: In two versions, Heraclitus was cured of the dropsy and died of another disease. In one account, however, the philosopher "buried himself in a cowshed, expecting that the noxious damp humour would be drawn out of him by the warmth of the manure", while another says he treated himself with a liniment of cow manure and, after a day prone in the sun, died and was interred in the marketplace. According to Neathes of Cyzicus, after smearing himself with dung, Heraclitus was devoured by dogs.[21][22]

Diogenes states that Heraclitus' work was "a continuous treatise On Nature, but was divided into three discourses, one on the universe, another on politics, and a third on theology." Theophrastus says (in Diogenes) "...some parts of his work [are] half-finished, while other parts [made] a strange medley."[3]

Diogenes also tells us that Heraclitus deposited his book as a dedication in the great temple of Artemis, the Artemisium, one of the largest temples of the 6th century BC and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Ancient temples were regularly used for storing treasures, and were open to private individuals under exceptional circumstances; furthermore, many subsequent philosophers in this period refer to the work. Says Kahn:[8] "Down to the time of Plutarch and Clement, if not later, the little book of Heraclitus was available in its original form to any reader who chose to seek it out." Diogenes says:[3] "the book acquired such fame that it produced partisans of his philosophy who were called Heracliteans."

As with the other pre-Socratics, his writings survive now only in fragments quoted by other authors. These are catalogued using the Diels–Kranz numbering system.

At some time in antiquity he acquired this epithet denoting that his major sayings were difficult to understand. According to Diogenes Laërtius,[3]Timon of Phlius called him "the Riddler" (αἰνικτής; ainiktēs), and explained that Heraclitus wrote his book "rather unclearly" (asaphesteron) so that only the "capable" should attempt it. By the time of Cicero he had become "the dark" (ὁ Σκοτεινός; ho Skoteinós)[23] because he had spoken nimis obscurē, "too obscurely", concerning nature and had done so deliberately in order to be misunderstood. The customary English translation of ὁ Σκοτεινός follows the Latin, "the Obscure".

Diogenes Laërtius ascribes the theory that Heraclitus did not complete some of his works because of melancholia to Theophrastus.[3] Later he was referred to as the "weeping philosopher", as opposed to Democritus, who is known as the "laughing philosopher".[24] If Stobaeus[25] writes correctly, Sotion in the early 1st century CE was already combining the two in the imaginative duo of weeping and laughing philosophers: "Among the wise, instead of anger, Heraclitus was overtaken by tears, Democritus by laughter." The view is expressed by the satirist Juvenal:[26]

The first of prayers, best known at all the temples, is mostly for riches... Seeing this then do you not commend the one sage Democritus for laughing... and the master of the other school Heraclitus for his tears?

The motif was also adopted by Lucian of Samosata in his "Sale of Creeds", in which the duo is sold together as a complementary product in the satirical auction of philosophers. Subsequently, they were considered an indispensable feature of philosophic landscapes. Montaigne proposed two archetypical views of human affairs based on them, selecting Democritus' for himself.[27] The weeping philosopher may have been mentioned in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.[28]Donato Bramante painted a fresco, "Democritus and Heraclitus," in Casa Panigarola in Milan.[29]

"The idea that all things come to pass in accordance with this Logos"[30] and "the Logos is common,"[31] is expressed in two famous but obscure fragments:

This Logos holds always but humans always prove unable to understand it, both before hearing it and when they have first heard it. For though all things come to be in accordance with this Logos, humans are like the inexperienced when they experience such words and deeds as I set out, distinguishing each in accordance with its nature and saying how it is. But other people fail to notice what they do when awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep. (DK 22B1)

For this reason it is necessary to follow what is common. But although the Logos is common, most people live as if they had their own private understanding. (DK 22B2)

The meaning of Logos also is subject to interpretation: "word", "account", "principle", "plan", "formula", "measure", "proportion", "reckoning."[32] Though Heraclitus "quite deliberately plays on the various meanings of logos",[33] there is no compelling reason to suppose that he used it in a special technical sense, significantly different from the way it was used in ordinary Greek of his time.[34]

The later Stoics understood it as "the account which governs everything,"[35] and Hippolytus, in the 3rd century CE, identified it as meaning the ChristianWord of God.[36]

The phrase πάντα ῥεῖ (panta rhei) "everything flows"[37] either was spoken by Heraclitus or survived as a quotation of his. This famous aphorism used to characterize Heraclitus' thought comes from Simplicius,[38] a neoplatonist, and from Plato's Cratylus. The word rhei (as in rheology) is the Greek word for "to stream", and is etymologically related to Rhea according to Plato's Cratylus.[39]

The philosophy of Heraclitus is summed up in his cryptic utterance:[40]

However, the German classicist and philosopher Karl-Martin Dietz interprets this fragment as an indication by Heraclitus, for the world as a steady constant: "You will not find anything, in which the river remains constant. [...] Just the fact, that there is a particular river bed, that there is a source and a estuary etc. is something, that stays identical. And this is [...] the concept of a river".[45]

In ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω[46] the structure anō katō is more accurately[original research?] translated as a hyphenated word: "the upward-downward path". They go on simultaneously and instantaneously and result in "hidden harmony".[47] A way is a series of transformations: the πυρὸς τροπαὶ, "turnings of fire",[48] first into sea, then half of sea to earth and half to rarefied air.

The transformation is a replacement of one element by another: "The death of fire is the birth of air, and the death of air is the birth of water."[49]

This world, which is the same for all, no one of gods or men has made. But it always was and will be: an ever-living fire, with measures of it kindling, and measures going out.[50]

This latter phraseology is further elucidated:

All things are an interchange for fire, and fire for all things, just like goods for gold and gold for goods.[51]

Heraclitus considered fire as the most fundamental element. He believed fire gave rise to the other elements and thus to all things. He regarded the soul as being a mixture of fire and water, with fire being the noble part of the soul, and water the ignoble part. A soul should therefore aim toward becoming more full of fire and less full of water: a "dry" soul was best. According to Heraclitus, worldly pleasures made the soul "moist", and he considered mastering one's worldly desires to be a noble pursuit which purified the soul's fire.[52]Norman Melchert interpreted Heraclitus as using "fire" metaphorically, in lieu of Logos, as the origin of all things.[53]

If objects are new from moment to moment so that one can never touch the same object twice, then each object must dissolve and be generated continually momentarily and an object is a harmony between a building up and a tearing down. Heraclitus calls the oppositional processes ἔρις (eris), "strife", and hypothesizes that the apparently stable state, δίκη (dikê), or "justice", is a harmony of it:[54]

We must know that war (πόλεμοςpolemos) is common to all and strife is justice, and that all things come into being through strife necessarily.

People must "follow the common" (ἕπεσθαι τῷ κοινῷhepesthai tō koinō)[57] and not live having "their own judgement (phronēsis)". He distinguishes between human laws and divine law (τοῦ θείουtoū theioulit. "of God").[58] By "God" Heraclitus does not mean the Judeo-Christian version of a single God as primum movens of all things, God as Creator, but the divine as opposed to human; the immortal as opposed to the mortal, the cyclical as opposed to the transient. It is more accurate to speak of "the Divine" and not of "God".

He removes the human sense of justice from his concept of God; i.e., humanity is not the image of God: "To God all things are fair and good and just, but people hold some things wrong and some right."[59] God's custom has wisdom but human custom does not,[60] and yet both humans and God are childish (inexperienced): "human opinions are children's toys"[61] and "Eternity is a child moving counters in a game; the kingly power is a child's."[62]

Wisdom is "to know the thought by which all things are steered through all things",[63] which must not imply that people are or can be wise. Only Zeus is wise.[64] To some degree then Heraclitus seems to be in the mystic's position of urging people to follow God's plan without much of an idea what that may be. In fact there is a note of despair: "The fairest universe (κάλλιστος κόσμοςkállistos kósmos) is but a heap of rubbish (σάρμαsármalit. "sweepings") piled up (κεχυμένονkechuménon, i.e. "poured out") at random (εἰκῇeikê "aimlessly")."[65]

This influential quote by Heraclitus "ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων" (DK 22B119) has led to numerous interpretations. Whether in this context "daimon" can indeed be translated to mean "fate" is disputed; however, it lends much sense to Heraclitus' observations and conclusions about human nature in general. While the translation with "fate" is generally accepted as in Kahn's "a man's character is his divinity", in some cases, it may also stand for the soul of the departed.[66]

To Heraclitus, a perceived object is a harmony between two fundamental units of change, a waxing and a waning. He typically uses the ordinary word "to become" (gignesthai or ginesthai, present tense or aorist tense of the verb, with the root sense of "being born"), which led to his being characterized as the philosopher of becoming rather than of being. He recognizes the fundamental changing of objects with the flow of time.

How can that be a real thing which is never in the same state? ... for at the moment that the observer approaches, then they become other ... so that you cannot get any further in knowing their nature or state .... but if that which knows and that which is known exist ever ... then I do not think they can resemble a process or flux ....

In Plato one experienced unit is a state, or object existing, which can be observed. The time parameter is set at "ever"; that is, the state is to be presumed present between observations. Change is to be deduced by comparing observations and is thus presumed a function that happens to objects already in being, rather than something ontologically essential to them (such that something that does not change cannot exist) as in Heraclitus. In Plato, no matter how many of those experienced units you are able to tally, you cannot get through the mysterious gap between them to account for the change that must be occurring there. This limitation is considered a fundamental limitation of reality by Plato and in part underpins his differentiation between imperfect experience from more perfect Forms. The fact that this is no limitation for Heraclitus motivates Plato's condemnation.[citation needed]

Stoicism was a philosophical school which flourished between the 3rd century BC and about the 3rd century AD. It began among the Greeks and became the major philosophy of the Roman Empire before declining with the rise of Christianity in the 3rd century.

Throughout their long tenure the Stoics believed that the major tenets of their philosophy derived from the thought of Heraclitus.[68] According to Long, "the importance of Heraclitus to later Stoics is evident most plainly in Marcus Aurelius."[69] Explicit connections of the earliest Stoics to Heraclitus showing how they arrived at their interpretation are missing but they can be inferred from the Stoic fragments, which Long concludes are "modifications of Heraclitus."[70]

The Stoics were interested in Heraclitus' treatment of fire. In addition to seeing it as the most fundamental of the four elements and the one that is quantified and determines the quantity (logos) of the other three, he presents fire as the cosmos, which was not made by any of the gods or men, but "was and is and ever shall be ever-living fire."[71] Fire is both a substance and a motivator of change, it is active in altering other things quantitatively and performing an activity Heraclitus describes as "the judging and convicting of all things."[72] It is "the thunderbolt that steers the course of all things."[73] There is no reason to interpret the judgement, which is actually "to separate" (κρίνειν krinein), as outside of the context of "strife is justice" (see subsection above).

The earliest surviving Stoic work, the Hymn to Zeus of Cleanthes,[74] though not explicitly referencing Heraclitus, adopts what appears to be the Heraclitean logos modified. Zeus rules the universe with law (nomos) wielding on its behalf the "forked servant", the "fire" of the "ever-living lightning." So far nothing has been said that differs from the Zeus of Homer. But then, says Cleanthes, Zeus uses the fire to "straighten out the common logos" that travels about (phoitan, "to frequent") mixing with the greater and lesser lights (heavenly bodies). This is Heraclitus' logos, but now it is confused with the "common nomos", which Zeus uses to "make the wrong (perissa, left or odd) right (artia, right or even)" and "order (kosmein) the disordered (akosma)."[75]

The Stoic modification of Heraclitus' idea of the Logos was also influential on Jewish philosophers such as Philo of Alexandria, who connected it to "Wisdom personified" as God's creative principle. Philo uses the term Logos throughout his treatises on Hebrew Scripture in a manner clearly influenced by the Stoics.

The church fathers were the leaders of the early Christian Church during its first five centuries of existence, roughly contemporaneous to Stoicism under the Roman Empire. The works of dozens of writers in hundreds of pages have survived.

All of them had something to say about the Christian form of the Logos. The Catholic Church found it necessary to distinguish between the Christian logos and that of Heraclitus as part of its ideological distancing from paganism. The necessity to convert by defeating paganism was of paramount importance. Hippolytus of Rome therefore identifies Heraclitus along with the other Pre-Socratics (and Academics) as sources of heresy. Church use of the methods and conclusions of ancient philosophy as such was as yet far in the future, even though many were converted philosophers.

In Refutation of All Heresies[76] Hippolytus says: "What the blasphemous folly is of Noetus, and that he devoted himself to the tenets of Heraclitus the Obscure, not to those of Christ." Hippolytus then goes on to present the inscrutable DK B67: "God (theos) is day and night, winter and summer, ... but he takes various shapes, just as fire, when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the savor of each." The fragment seems to support pantheism if taken literally. German physicist and philosopher Max Bernard Weinstein classed these views with pandeism.[77]

Hippolytus condemns the obscurity of it. He cannot accuse Heraclitus of being a heretic so he says instead: "Did not (Heraclitus) the Obscure anticipate Noetus in framing a system ...?" The apparent pantheist deity of Heraclitus (if that is what DK B67 means) must be equal to the union of opposites and therefore must be corporeal and incorporeal, divine and not-divine, dead and alive, etc., and the Trinity can only be reached by some sort of illusory shape-shifting.[78]

The Christian apologist Justin Martyr, however, took a much more positive view of him. In his First Apology, he said both Socrates and Heraclitus were Christians before Christ: "those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them." [79]

^For the etymology see Watkins, Calvert (2000). "Appendix I: Indo-European Roots: sreu". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth ed.). In pronunciation the -ei- is a diphthong sounding like the -ei- in reindeer. The initial r is aspirated or made breathy, which indicates the dropping of the s in *sreu-.

^The ancient Greek can be found in Blakeney, E.H.The Hymn of Cleanthes: Greek Text Translated into English: with Brief Introduction and Notes. New York: The MacMillan Company. Downloadable Google Books at [1].

Wright, M.R. (1985). The Presocratics: The main Fragments in Greek with Introduction, Commentary and Appendix Containing Text and Translation of Aristotle on the Presocratics. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. ISBN0-86292-079-5.

Elpenor. "Heraclitus: The Word is Common". The Greek Word: Three Millennia of Greek Literature. Elpenor. Retrieved 2007-10-10. Heraclitus bilingual anthology from DK in Greek and English, side by side, the translations being provided by the organization, Elpenor.

Lancereau, M. Daniel; Béreau, M. Samuel (2007). "Heraclitus". Philoctetes: ΦΙΛΟΚΤΗΤΗΣ. Retrieved 2007-10-10. Site with links to pdf's containing the fragments of DK in Greek (Unicode) with the English translations of John Burnet (see Bibliography) and translations into French, either in parallel columns or interlinear, with links on the lexical items to Perseus dictionaries. Includes also Heraclitus article from Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition.

1.
Johannes Moreelse
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Johannes Paulus Moreelse, or Johan Pauwelszon Moreelse, was a Dutch baroque painter belonging to the school of Utrecht Caravaggism during the Dutch Golden Age. Moreelse was born in Utrecht, Holland and his father, Paulus Moreelse, was at that time a famous portrait painter. Little is known about his life, Johan Moreelse studied in Utrecht, in the studio of his father, and then in Rome, where he was appointed into a papal knight order. Moreelse died in his town during a plague epidemic. His small number of works were only assigned to him in the 1970s. Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe, Oxford, 2nd ed. dl, I, pp. 150–151 J. A. Spicer, cat. Dutch painters in Utrecht during the Golden Age, Baltimore, San Francisco, London, pp. 385–386 Media related to Johannes Moreelse at Wikimedia Commons

2.
Ephesus
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Ephesus was an ancient Greek city on the coast of Ionia, three kilometres southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in the 10th century BC on the site of the former Arzawan capital by Attic, during the Classical Greek era it was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League. The city flourished after it came under the control of the Roman Republic in 129 BC, the city was famed for the nearby Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Among many other buildings are the Library of Celsus. Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia that are cited in the Book of Revelation, the Gospel of John may have been written here. The city was the site of several 5th century Christian Councils, the city was destroyed by the Goths in 263, and although rebuilt, the citys importance as a commercial centre declined as the harbour was slowly silted up by the Küçükmenderes River. It was partially destroyed by an earthquake in 614 AD, the area surrounding Ephesus was already inhabited during the Neolithic Age, as was revealed by excavations at the nearby höyük of Arvalya and Cukurici. Excavations in recent years have unearthed settlements from the early Bronze Age at Ayasuluk Hill, according to Hittite sources, the capital of the Kingdom of Arzawa was Apasa. Some scholars suggest that this is the later Greek Ephesus, in 1954, a burial ground from the Mycenaean era with ceramic pots was discovered close to the ruins of the basilica of St. John. This was the period of the Mycenaean Expansion when the Achaioi settled in Asia Minor during the 14th and 13th centuries BC, Ephesus was founded as an Attic-Ionian colony in the 10th century BC on the Ayasuluk Hill, three kilometers from the centre of ancient Ephesus. The mythical founder of the city was a prince of Athens named Androklos, according to the legend, he founded Ephesus on the place where the oracle of Delphi became reality. Androklos drove away most of the native Carian and Lelegian inhabitants of the city and he was a successful warrior, and as a king he was able to join the twelve cities of Ionia together into the Ionian League. During his reign the city began to prosper and he died in a battle against the Carians when he came to the aid of Priene, another city of the Ionian League. Androklos and his dog are depicted on the Hadrian temple frieze, later, Greek historians such as Pausanias, Strabo and Herodotos and the poet Kallinos reassigned the citys mythological foundation to Ephos, queen of the Amazons. The Greek goddess Artemis and the great Anatolian goddess Kybele were identified together as Artemis of Ephesus, Pausanias mentions that the temple was built by Ephesus, son of the river god Caystrus, before the arrival of the Ionians. Of this structure, scarcely a trace remains, about 650 BC, Ephesus was attacked by the Cimmerians who razed the city, including the temple of Artemis. After the Cimmerians had been away, the city was ruled by a series of tyrants. Following a revolt by the people, Ephesus was ruled by a council and his signature has been found on the base of one of the columns of the temple

3.
Ionia (satrapy)
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Ionia, known in Old Persian as Yauna, was a region within the satrapy of Sardis within the First Persian Empire. The first mention of the Yauna is at the Behistun inscription, the Ionians were conquered by Cyrus the Great and according to Herodotus, they were placed in the same tax district as the Pamphylians, Lycians, Magnesians, Aeolians, Milyans, and Carians. It is unclear to what extent the Yauna were advantaged or disadvantaged by Persian rule, after the revolt was put down, the Ionian cities were subdued by some pragmatic and enlightened measures by the Persian satrap of Sardis, Artaphrenes. It was only after the Persians were defeated at Plataea in 479 that the Ionian cities had the confidence to revolt again, soon afterwards, they signed up to a common defence league led by Athens, known today as the Delian League. However, these soon came under the domination of Athens. After the Peloponnesian War and the destruction of Athenian power, Sparta ceded them back to Persia in the peace of Antalcidas, ionia remained under Persian rule until the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Beside to Yaunas of the plain and sea, there are also mentioned Yauna paradraya as well the Yauna takabara in Skudra satrapy. Ionian Revolt Yona Skudra Yauna The Persian Empire, Studies in Geography and Ethnography of the Ancient Near East,1968, p.345, Ernst Herzfeld, Gerold Walser

4.
Achaemenid Empire
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The Achaemenid Empire, also called the Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The empires successes inspired similar systems in later empires and it is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in a Hellenistic style in the empire as well. By the 7th century BC, the Persians had settled in the portion of the Iranian Plateau in the region of Persis. From this region, Cyrus the Great advanced to defeat the Medes, Lydia, Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered the empire in its entirety by 330 BC. Upon his death, most of the former territory came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire. The Persian population of the central plateau reclaimed power by the second century BC under the Parthian Empire, the historical mark of the Achaemenid Empire went far beyond its territorial and military influences and included cultural, social, technological and religious influences as well. Many Athenians adopted Achaemenid customs in their lives in a reciprocal cultural exchange. The impact of Cyruss edict is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts, the empire also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Iran. Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details Due to the duration of their reigns, Smerdis, Xerxes II. The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here, the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished, they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Achaemenid Empire was not the first Iranian empire, as by 6th century BC another group of ancient Iranian peoples had established the short lived Median Empire. The Iranian peoples had arrived in the region of what is today Iran c.1000 BC and had for a number of centuries fallen under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. However, the Medes and Persians, Cimmerians, Persians and Chaldeans played a role in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire. The term Achaemenid means of the family of the Achaemenis/Achaemenes, despite the derivation of the name, Achaemenes was himself a minor seventh-century ruler of the Anshan in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Assyria. At some point in 550 BC, Cyrus rose in rebellion against the Medes, eventually conquering the Medes and creating the first Persian empire

5.
Ancient philosophy
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This page lists some links to ancient philosophy. Genuinely philosophical thought, depending upon original individual insights, arose in many cultures roughly contemporaneously, karl Jaspers termed the intense period of philosophical development beginning around the 7th century and concluding around the 3rd century BCE an Axial Age in human thought. Chinese philosophy is the dominant philosophical thought in China and other countries within the East Asian cultural sphere share a common language, including Japan, Korea. The Hundred Schools of Thought were philosophers and schools that flourished from the 6th century to 221 BCE, the thoughts and ideas discussed and refined during this period have profoundly influenced lifestyles and social consciousness up to the present day in East Asian countries. The intellectual society of this era was characterized by itinerant scholars, who were employed by various state rulers as advisers on the methods of government, war. This period ended with the rise of the Qin Dynasty and the subsequent purge of dissent, a main idea of Confucianism is the cultivation of virtue and the development of moral perfection. Confucianism holds that one should give up ones life, if necessary, either passively or actively, for the sake of upholding the cardinal moral values of ren, the Legalists exalted the state above all, seeking its prosperity and martial prowess over the welfare of the common people. Harmony with the Universe, or the source thereof, is the result of many Taoist rules and practices. Mohism, which advocated the idea of love, Mozi believed that everyone is equal before heaven. Mozi advocated frugality, condemning the Confucian emphasis on ritual and music, naturalism, the School of Naturalists or the Yin-yang school, which synthesized the concepts of yin-yang and the Five Elements, Zou Yan is considered the founder of this school. Agrarianism, or the School of Agrarianism, which advocated peasant utopian communalism and egalitarianism, the Logicians or the School of Names, which focused on definition and logic. It is said to have parallels with that of the Ancient Greek sophists or dialecticians, the most notable Logician was Gongsun Longzi. Scholars from this school were good orators, debaters and tacticians, the Miscellaneous School, which integrated teachings from different schools, for instance, Lü Buwei found scholars from different schools to write a book called Lüshi Chunqiu cooperatively. This school tried to integrate the merits of various schools and avoid their perceived flaws, the School of Minor-talks, which was not a unique school of thought, but a philosophy constructed of all the thoughts which were discussed by and originated from normal people on the street. Another group is the School of the Military that studied strategy, however, this school was not one of the Ten Schools defined by Hanshu. The founder of the Qin Dynasty, who implemented Legalism as the official philosophy, Legalism remained influential until the emperors of the Han Dynasty adopted Daoism and later Confucianism as official doctrine. These latter two became the forces of Chinese thought until the introduction of Buddhism. In contrast, there was an Old Text school that advocated the use of Confucian works written in ancient language that were so much more reliable

6.
Western philosophy
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Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. The word philosophy itself originated from the Hellenic, philosophia, literally, the scope of philosophy in the ancient understanding, and the writings of the ancient philosophers, were all intellectual endeavors. Western Philosophy is generally said to begin in the Greek cities of western Asia Minor with Thales of Miletus and his most noted students were respectively Anaximander and Anaximenes of Miletus. Pythagoras, from the island of Samos off the coast of Ionia, pythagoreans hold that all is number, giving formal accounts in contrast to the previous material of the Ionians. They also believe in metempsychosis, the transmigration of souls, or reincarnation, Socrates The key figure in Greek philosophy is Socrates. Socrates studied under several Sophists but transformed Greek philosophy into a unified, Socrates used a critical approach called the elenchus or Socratic method to examine peoples views. He aimed to study human things, the life, justice, beauty. Although Socrates wrote nothing himself, some of his many disciples wrote down his conversations and he was tried for corrupting the youth and impiety by the Greek democracy. He was found guilty and sentenced to death, although his friends offered to help him escape from prison, he chose to remain in Athens and abide by his principles. His execution consisting in drinking the poison hemlock and he died in 399 B. C, Plato Socrates most important student was Plato. Plato founded the Academy of Athens and wrote a number of dialogues, some central ideas of Platos dialogues are the immortality of the soul, the benefits of being just, that evil is ignorance, and the Theory of Forms. Forms are universal properties that constitute reality and contrast with the changeable material things he called becoming. Aristotle Platos most outstanding student was Aristotle, Aristotle was perhaps the first truly systematic philosopher and scientist. He wrote books on physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, politics, Aristotelian logic was the first type of logic to attempt to categorize every valid syllogism. Aristotelian philosophy exercised considerable influence on almost all western philosophers, including Greek, Roman, Christian, Jewish, the Neoplatonic and Christian philosophers of Late Antiquity. Early medieval philosophy was influenced by the likes of Stoicism, neo-Platonism, but, above all, the prominent figure of this period was St. Augustinianism was the preferred starting point for most philosophers up until the 13th century. The foundations of many northern European universities were built in the Middle Ages by waves of Irish, Scottish & English monks from the Celtic Church begun by Columba, see Celtic Christianity. Erigena is said to have been stabbed to death by his students with their pens and his theology would today be called pantheistic, in keeping with Celtic resolutions of pagan and Christian philosophy

7.
Ionian School (philosophy)
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The Ionian school, a type of Greek philosophy centred in Miletus, Ionia, in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, is something of a misnomer. Aristotle called them physiologoi, meaning those who discoursed on nature, the classification can be traced to the second-century historian of philosophy Sotion. They are sometimes referred to as cosmologists, since they were largely physicalists who tried to explain the nature of matter, while some of these scholars are included in the Milesian school of philosophy, others are more difficult to categorize. Most cosmologists thought that, although matter could change from one form to another, later philosophers widened their studies to include other areas of thought. The Eleatic school, for example, also studied epistemology, or how people come to know what exists, but the Ionians were the first group of philosophers that we know of, and so remain historically important. Thales of Miletus is regarded as the earliest Western philosopher, before him, the Greeks explained the origin and nature of the world through myths of anthropomorphic gods and heroes. Phenomena like lightning and earthquakes were attributed to actions of the gods, by contrast, Thales attempted to find naturalistic explanations of the world, without reference to the supernatural. He explained earthquakes by imagining that the Earth floats on water, Thales most famous belief was his cosmological doctrine, which held that the world originated from water. Anaximander wrote a work, little of which remains. This led to the belief that change is real, and stability illusory, for Heraclitus Everything flows, nothing stands still. He is also famous for saying, No man can cross the river twice. Empedocles was a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek colony in Sicily, empedocles philosophy is best known for being the origin of the cosmogenic theory of the four classical elements. He maintained that all matter is made up of four elements, water, earth, air, empedocles postulated forces called Love and Strife to explain the attraction and separation of different forms of matter. He was also one of the first people to state the theory that light travels at a finite speed, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae regarded material substance as an infinite multitude of imperishable primary elements, referring all generation and disappearance to mixture and separation respectively. All substance is ordered by a force, the cosmic mind. Archelaus was a Greek philosopher of the 5th century BCE, born probably in Athens and he was a pupil of Anaxagoras, and is said by Ion of Chios to have been the teacher of Socrates. Some argue that this is only an attempt to connect Socrates with the Ionian School. There is similar difference of opinion as regards the statement that Archelaus formulated certain ethical doctrines, in general, he followed Anaxagoras, but in his cosmology he went back to the earlier Ionians

8.
Epistemology
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Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief, the term Epistemology was first used by Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier in 1854. However, according to Brett Warren, King James VI of Scotland had previously personified this philosophical concept as the character Epistemon in 1591 and this philosophical approach signified a Philomath seeking to obtain greater knowledge through epistemology with the use of theology. The dialogue was used by King James to educate society on various concepts including the history, the word epistemology is derived from the ancient Greek epistēmē meaning knowledge and the suffix -logy, meaning a logical discourse to. J. F. Ferrier coined epistemology on the model of ontology, to designate that branch of philosophy which aims to discover the meaning of knowledge, and called it the true beginning of philosophy. The word is equivalent to the concept Wissenschaftslehre, which was used by German philosophers Johann Fichte, French philosophers then gave the term épistémologie a narrower meaning as theory of knowledge. Émile Meyerson opened his Identity and Reality, written in 1908, in mathematics, it is known that 2 +2 =4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers, and knowing a person, place, thing, or activity. Some philosophers think there is an important distinction between knowing that, knowing how, and acquaintance-knowledge, with epistemology being primarily concerned with the first of these, while these distinctions are not explicit in English, they are defined explicitly in other languages. In French, Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch to know is translated using connaître, conhecer, conocer, modern Greek has the verbs γνωρίζω and ξέρω. Italian has the verbs conoscere and sapere and the nouns for knowledge are conoscenza and sapienza, German has the verbs wissen and kennen. The verb itself implies a process, you have to go from one state to another and this verb seems to be the most appropriate in terms of describing the episteme in one of the modern European languages, hence the German name Erkenntnistheorie. The theoretical interpretation and significance of linguistic issues remains controversial. In his paper On Denoting and his later book Problems of Philosophy Bertrand Russell stressed the distinction between knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance, gilbert Ryle is also credited with stressing the distinction between knowing how and knowing that in The Concept of Mind. This position is essentially Ryles, who argued that a failure to acknowledge the distinction between knowledge that and knowledge how leads to infinite regress and this includes the truth, and everything else we accept as true for ourselves from a cognitive point of view. Whether someones belief is true is not a prerequisite for belief, on the other hand, if something is actually known, then it categorically cannot be false. It would not be accurate to say that he knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if the bridge actually supported his weight, then he might say that he had believed that the bridge was safe, whereas now, after proving it to himself, epistemologists argue over whether belief is the proper truth-bearer. Some would rather describe knowledge as a system of justified true propositions, plato, in his Gorgias, argues that belief is the most commonly invoked truth-bearer

9.
Ethics
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Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. The term ethics derives from the Ancient Greek word ἠθικός ethikos, the branch of philosophy axiology comprises the sub-branches of ethics and aesthetics, each concerned with values. As a branch of philosophy, ethics investigates the questions What is the best way for people to live, and What actions are right or wrong in particular circumstances. In practice, ethics seeks to resolve questions of morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice. As a field of enquiry, moral philosophy also is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics. Richard William Paul and Linda Elder define ethics as a set of concepts, the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy states that the word ethics is commonly used interchangeably with morality. And sometimes it is used narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition. Paul and Elder state that most people confuse ethics with behaving in accordance with social conventions, religious beliefs, the word ethics in English refers to several things. It can refer to philosophical ethics or moral philosophy—a project that attempts to use reason in order to various kinds of ethical questions. As bioethicist Larry Churchill has written, Ethics, understood as the capacity to think critically about moral values, Ethics can also be used to describe a particular persons own idiosyncratic principles or habits. For example, Joe has strange ethics, the English word ethics is derived from an Ancient Greek word êthikos, which means relating to ones character. The Ancient Greek adjective êthikos is itself derived from another Greek word, meta-ethics asks how we understand, know about, and what we mean when we talk about what is right and what is wrong. An ethical question fixed on some particular practical question—such as, Should I eat this particular piece of chocolate cake. —cannot be a meta-ethical question, a meta-ethical question is abstract and relates to a wide range of more specific practical questions. For example, Is it ever possible to have knowledge of what is right. Meta-ethics has always accompanied philosophical ethics, meta-ethics is also important in G. E. In it he first wrote about what he called the naturalistic fallacy, moore was seen to reject naturalism in ethics, in his Open Question Argument. This made thinkers look again at second order questions about ethics, earlier, the Scottish philosopher David Hume had put forward a similar view on the difference between facts and values. Studies of how we know in ethics divide into cognitivism and non-cognitivism, non-cognitivism is the claim that when we judge something as right or wrong, this is neither true nor false

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Politics
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Politics is the process of making decisions applying to all members of each group. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community, furthermore, politics is the study or practice of the distribution of power and resources within a given community as well as the interrelationship between communities. It is very often said that politics is about power, a political system is a framework which defines acceptable political methods within a given society. History of political thought can be traced back to antiquity, with seminal works such as Platos Republic, Aristotles Politics. Formal Politics refers to the operation of a system of government and publicly defined institutions. Political parties, public policy or discussions about war and foreign affairs would fall under the category of Formal Politics, many people view formal politics as something outside of themselves, but that can still affect their daily lives. Semi-formal Politics is Politics in government associations such as neighborhood associations, informal Politics is understood as forming alliances, exercising power and protecting and advancing particular ideas or goals. Generally, this includes anything affecting ones daily life, such as the way an office or household is managed, informal Politics is typically understood as everyday politics, hence the idea that politics is everywhere. The word comes from the same Greek word from which the title of Aristotles book Politics also derives, the book title was rendered in Early Modern English in the mid-15th century as Polettiques, it became politics in Modern English. The history of politics is reflected in the origin, development, the origin of the state is to be found in the development of the art of warfare. Historically speaking, all communities of the modern type owe their existence to successful warfare. Kings, emperors and other types of monarchs in many countries including China, of the institutions that ruled states, that of kingship stood at the forefront until the French Revolution put an end to the divine right of kings. Nevertheless, the monarchy is among the political institutions, dating as early as 2100 BC in Sumeria to the 21st century AD British Monarchy. Kingship becomes an institution through the institution of Hereditary monarchy, the king often, even in absolute monarchies, ruled his kingdom with the aid of an elite group of advisors, a council without which he could not maintain power. As these advisors and others outside the monarchy negotiated for power, constitutional monarchies emerged, long before the council became a bulwark of democracy, it rendered invaluable aid to the institution of kingship by, Preserving the institution of kingship through heredity. Preserving the traditions of the social order, being able to withstand criticism as an impersonal authority. Being able to manage a greater deal of knowledge and action than an individual such as the king. The greatest of the subordinates, the earls and dukes in England and Scotland

11.
Cosmology
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Cosmology is the study of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe. The term cosmology was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blounts Glossographia, religious or mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on mythological, religious, and esoteric literature and traditions of creation and eschatology. Physical cosmology is studied by scientists, such as astronomers and physicists, as well as philosophers, such as metaphysicians, philosophers of physics, and philosophers of space and time. Because of this scope with philosophy, theories in physical cosmology may include both scientific and non-scientific propositions, and may depend upon assumptions that can not be tested. Cosmology differs from astronomy in that the former is concerned with the Universe as a whole while the latter deals with individual celestial objects. Theoretical astrophysicist David N. Spergel has described cosmology as a science because when we look out in space. Physics and astrophysics have played a role in shaping the understanding of the universe through scientific observation. Physical cosmology was shaped through both mathematics and observation in an analysis of the whole universe, cosmogony studies the origin of the Universe, and cosmography maps the features of the Universe. In Diderots Encyclopédie, cosmology is broken down into uranology, aerology, geology, metaphysical cosmology has also been described as the placing of man in the universe in relationship to all other entities. Physical cosmology is the branch of physics and astrophysics that deals with the study of the physical origins and it also includes the study of the nature of the Universe on a large scale. In its earliest form, it was what is now known as celestial mechanics, greek philosophers Aristarchus of Samos, Aristotle, and Ptolemy proposed different cosmological theories. The geocentric Ptolemaic system was the theory until the 16th century when Nicolaus Copernicus. This is one of the most famous examples of epistemological rupture in physical cosmology, when Isaac Newton published the Principia Mathematica in 1687, he finally figured out how the heavens moved. A fundamental difference between Newtons cosmology and those preceding it was the Copernican principle—that the bodies on earth obey the same laws as all the celestial bodies. This was a crucial advance in physical cosmology. Physicists began changing the assumption that the Universe was static and unchanging, in 1922 Alexander Friedmann introduced the idea of an expanding universe that contained moving matter. In parallel to this approach to cosmology, one long-standing debate about the structure of the cosmos was coming to a climax. This difference of ideas came to a climax with the organization of the Great Debate on 26 April 1920 at the meeting of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D. C

12.
Logos
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Logos is the logic behind an argument. Logos tries to persuade an audience using logical arguments and supportive evidence, Logos is a persuasive technique often used in writing and rhetoric. Ancient Greek philosophers used the term in different ways, the sophists used the term to mean discourse, and Aristotle applied the term to refer to reasoned discourse or the argument in the field of rhetoric. The Stoic philosophers identified the term with the animating principle pervading the Universe. Under Hellenistic Judaism, Philo adopted the term into Jewish philosophy, the Gospel of John identifies the Logos, through which all things are made, as divine, and further identifies Jesus Christ as the incarnate Logos. Despite the conventional translation as word, it is not used for a word in the sense, instead. However, both logos and lexis derive from the same verb legō, meaning count, tell, say, jeanne Fahnestock describes logos as a premise. She states that, to find the reason behind a rhetors backing of a position or stance. The rhetors success, she argues, will come down to objects of agreement. between arguer and audience. Logos is logical appeal, and the logic is derived from it. It is normally used to describe facts and figures that support the speakers topic, furthermore, logos is credited with appealing to the audiences sense of logic, with the definition of “logic” being concerned with the thing as it is known. Philo distinguished between logos prophorikos and the logos endiathetos, the Stoics also spoke of the logos spermatikos, which is not important in the Biblical tradition but is relevant in Neoplatonism. Early translators from Greek, such as Jerome in the 4th century, were frustrated by the inadequacy of any single Latin word to convey the Logos expressed in the Gospel of John. The Vulgate Bible usage of in principio erat verbum was thus constrained to use the noun verbum for word, but later romance language translations had the advantage of nouns such as le mot in French. Martin Luther rejected Zeitwort in favor of Wort, for instance, although later commentators repeatedly turned to a dynamic use involving the living word as felt by Jerome. For Heraclitus, logos provided the link between rational discourse and the rational structure. This logos holds always but humans always prove unable to understand it, but other people fail to notice what they do when awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep. For this reason it is necessary to follow what is common, but although the logos is common, most people live as if they had their own private understanding

13.
Anaximander
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Anaximander was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus, a city of Ionia. He belonged to the Milesian school and learned the teachings of his master Thales and he succeeded Thales and became the second master of that school where he counted Anaximenes and, arguably, Pythagoras amongst his pupils. Little of his life and work is known today, according to available historical documents, he is the first philosopher known to have written down his studies, although only one fragment of his work remains. Fragmentary testimonies found in documents after his death provide a portrait of the man, like many thinkers of his time, Anaximanders philosophy included contributions to many disciplines. In astronomy, he attempted to describe the mechanics of celestial bodies in relation to the Earth, in physics, his postulation that the indefinite was the source of all things led Greek philosophy to a new level of conceptual abstraction. His knowledge of geometry allowed him to introduce the gnomon in Greece and he created a map of the world that contributed greatly to the advancement of geography. He was also involved in the politics of Miletus and was sent as a leader to one of its colonies, Anaximander, son of Praxiades, was born in the third year of the 42nd Olympiad. According to Apollodorus of Athens, Greek grammarian of the 2nd century BC, he was years old during the second year of the 58th Olympiad. Establishing a timeline of his work is now impossible, since no document provides chronological references, Themistius, a 4th-century Byzantine rhetorician, mentions that he was the first of the known Greeks to publish a written document on nature. Therefore, his texts would be amongst the earliest written in prose, by the time of Plato, his philosophy was almost forgotten, and Aristotle, his successor Theophrastus and a few doxographers provide us with the little information that remains. However, we know from Aristotle that Thales, also from Miletus and it is debatable whether Thales actually was the teacher of Anaximander, but there is no doubt that Anaximander was influenced by Thales theory that everything is derived from water. 3rd-century Roman rhetorician Aelian depicts him as leader of the Milesian colony to Apollonia on the Black Sea coast, indeed, Various History explains that philosophers sometimes also dealt with political matters. It is very likely that leaders of Miletus sent him there as a legislator to create a constitution or simply to maintain the colony’s allegiance. Anaximanders theories were influenced by the Greek mythical tradition, and by some ideas of Thales – the father of philosophy – as well as by observations made by older civilizations in the East. This was a practice for the Greek philosophers in a society which saw gods everywhere, therefore they could fit their ideas into a tolerably elastic system. Some scholars see a gap between the mythical and the new rational way of thought which is the main characteristic of the archaic period in the Greek city states. This has given rise to the phrase Greek miracle, but if we follow carefully the course of Anaximanders ideas, we will notice that there was not such an abrupt break as initially appears. The basic elements of nature which the first Greek philosophers believed that constituted the universe represent in fact the primordial forces of previous thought and their collision produced what the mythical tradition had called cosmic harmony

14.
Pythagoras
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Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and the putative founder of the movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written centuries after he lived. He was born on the island of Samos, and travelled, visiting Egypt and Greece, around 530 BC, he moved to Croton, in Magna Graecia, and there established some kind of school or guild. In 520 BC, he returned to Samos, Pythagoras made influential contributions to philosophy and religion in the late 6th century BC. He is often revered as a mathematician and scientist and is best known for the Pythagorean theorem which bears his name. Many of the accomplishments credited to Pythagoras may actually have been accomplishments of his colleagues, some accounts mention that the philosophy associated with Pythagoras was related to mathematics and that numbers were important. It was said that he was the first man to himself a philosopher, or lover of wisdom, and Pythagorean ideas exercised a marked influence on Plato. Burkert states that Aristoxenus and Dicaearchus are the most important accounts, Aristotle had written a separate work On the Pythagoreans, which is no longer extant. However, the Protrepticus possibly contains parts of On the Pythagoreans and his disciples Dicaearchus, Aristoxenus, and Heraclides Ponticus had written on the same subject. These writers, late as they are, were among the best sources from whom Porphyry and Iamblichus drew, while adding some legendary accounts. Herodotus, Isocrates, and other writers agree that Pythagoras was the son of Mnesarchus and born on the Greek island of Samos. His father is said to have been a gem-engraver or a wealthy merchant, a late source gives his mothers name as Pythais. As to the date of his birth, Aristoxenus stated that Pythagoras left Samos in the reign of Polycrates, at the age of 40, around 530 BC he arrived in the Greek colony of Croton in what was then Magna Graecia. There he founded his own school the members of which he engaged to a disciplined. He furthermore aquired some political influence, on Greeks and non-Greeks of the region, following a conflict with the neighbouring colony of Sybaris, internal discord drove most of the Pythagoreans out of Croton. Pythagoras left the city before the outbreak of civil unrest and moved to Metapontum, after his death, his house was transformed into a sanctuary of Demeter, out of veneration for the philosopher, by the local population. In ancient sources there was disagreement and inconsistency about the late life of Pythagoras. His tomb was shown at Metapontum in the time of Cicero, according to Walter Burkert, Most obvious is the contradiction between Aristoxenus and Dicaearchus, regarding the catastrophe that overwhelmed the Pythagorean society

15.
Bias of Priene
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Bias of Priene was a Greek sage. He is widely accepted as one of the Seven Sages of Greece and was renowned for his probity, Bias was born at Priene and was the son of Teutamus. He is said to have been distinguished for his skill as an advocate, in reference to which Demodicus of Alerius uttered the following saying – If you are a judge, give a Prienian decision, and Hipponax said, More powerful in pleading causes than Bias of Priene. Satyrus placed him at the head of the Seven Sages, and even Heraclitus, one of the examples of his great goodness is the legend that says that Bias paid a ransom for some women who had been taken prisoner. After educating them as his own daughters, he sent them back to Messina, their homeland, Bias is said to have died at a very advanced age while pleading a cause for his client. After he had finished speaking, he rested his head on his grandson, when the advocate on the opposite side had spoken, the judges decided in favor of Biass client, by which time Bias had died. The city gave him a magnificent funeral and inscribed on his tomb, Here Bias of Priene lies, whose name Brought to his home and it is said that Bias wrote a poem of 2000 lines on Ionia and the way to make it prosperous. Many sayings were attributed to him by Diogenes Laertius and by others and it is difficult to bear a change of fortune for the worse with magnanimity. Choose the course which you adopt with deliberation, but when you have adopted it, do not speak fast, for that shows folly. Speak of the Gods as they are, do not praise an undeserving man because of his riches. Gain your point by persuasion, not by force, cherish wisdom as a means of traveling from youth to old age, for it is more lasting than any other possession. So order your affairs as if you were to live long, I carry all my effects with me. Take by persuasion, not by force, in April,1819, Schopenhauer wrote in his Reisebuch, In the Vatican there is the bust of Bias with the inscription of πλεῖστοι ἄνθρωποι κακοί. Indeed this must have been his maxim

16.
Zoroaster
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Zoroaster, also known as Zarathustra, Zarathushtra Spitama or Ashu Zarathushtra, was an ancient Iranian prophet whose teachings developed into Zoroastrianism. He inaugurated a movement that became the dominant religion in Ancient Persia. He was a speaker of Old Avestan and lived in the eastern part of the Iranian Plateau. Zoroastrianism was already an old religion when first recorded, and it was the religion of Persian Empires. He is credited with the authorship of the Yasna Haptanghaiti as well as the Gathas, most of his life is known from the Zoroastrian texts. Zoroasters name in his language, Avestan, was probably Zaraϑuštra. His English name, Zoroaster, derives from a later Greek transcription, Zōroastrēs, as used in Xanthuss Lydiaca and this form appears subsequently in the Latin Zōroastrēs and, in later Greek orthographies, as Zōroastris. The Greek form of the name appears to be based on a phonetic transliteration or semantic substitution of Avestan zaraϑ- with the Greek zōros, subject then to whether Zaraϑuštra derives from *Zarantuštra- or from *Zaratuštra-, several interpretations have been proposed. If Zarantuštra is the form, it may mean with old/aging camels. With angry/furious camels, from Avestan *zarant-, angry, furious, who is driving camels or who is fostering/cherishing camels, related to Avestan zarš-, to drag. Why this is not so for zaraϑuštra has not yet been determined, notwithstanding the phonetic irregularity, that Avestan zaraϑuštra with its -ϑ- was linguistically an actual form is shown by later attestations reflecting the same basis. All present-day, Iranian-language variants of his name derive from the Middle Iranian variants of Zarϑošt, there is no consensus on the dating of Zoroaster, the Avesta gives no direct information about it, while historical sources are conflicting. Many scholars like Mary Boyce used linguistic and socio-cultural evidence to place Zoroaster between 1500 and 1000 BCE, both texts are considered to have a common archaic Indo-Iranian origin. These scholars suggest that Zoroaster lived in a tribe or composed the Gathas before the 1200–1000 BCE migration by the Iranians from the steppe to the Iranian Plateau. The shortfall of the argument is the comparison, and the archaic language of Gathas does not necessarily indicate time difference. Other scholars propose a period between 7th and 6th century, for example, c, the latest possible date is the mid 6th century, at the time of Achaemenid Empires Darius I, or his predecessor Cyrus the Great. However, in the Avesta it should not be ignored that Vishtaspas son became the ruler of the Persian Empire, the most likely conclusion is that Darius Is father was named in honor of the Zoroastrian patron, indicating probable Zoroastrian faith by Arsames. e. This belief is recorded by Diogenes Laërtius, and variant readings could place it six hundred years before Xerxes I, however, Diogenes also mentions Hermodorus belief that Zoroaster lived five thousand years before the Trojan War, which would mean he lived around 6200 BCE

17.
Homer
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Homer is the name ascribed by the ancient Greeks to the semi-legendary author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems which are the central works of Greek literature. The Odyssey focuses on the home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca. Many accounts of Homers life circulated in classical antiquity, the most widespread being that he was a bard from Ionia. The modern scholarly consensus is that these traditions do not have any historical value, the Homeric question - by whom, when, where and under what circumstances were the Iliad and Odyssey composed - continues to be debated. Broadly speaking, modern scholarly opinion on the authorship question falls into two camps, one group holds that most of the Iliad and the Odyssey is the work of a single poet of genius. The other considers the Homeric poems to be the crystallization of a process of working and re-working by many contributors and it is generally accepted that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century B. C. Most researchers believe that the poems were transmitted orally. The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education, to Plato, the chronological period of Homer depends on the meaning to be assigned to the word Homer. Was Homer a single person, an imaginary person representing a group of poets and this information is often called the world of Homer. The Homeric period would in that cover a number of historical periods, especially the Mycenaean Age. Considered word-for-word, the texts as we know them are the product of the scholars of the last three centuries. Each edition of the Iliad or Odyssey is a different, as the editors rely on different manuscripts and fragments. The term accuracy reveals a belief in an original uniform text. The manuscripts of the work currently available date to no earlier than the 10th century. These are at the end of a missing thousand-year chain of copies made as each generation of manuscripts disintegrated or were lost or destroyed and these numerous manuscripts are so similar that a single original can be postulated. The time gap in the chain is bridged by the scholia, or notes, on the existing manuscripts, librarian of the Library of Alexandria, he had noticed a wide divergence in the works attributed to Homer, and was trying to restore a more authentic copy. He had collected several manuscripts, which he named, the Sinopic, the one he selected for correction was the koine, which Murray translates as the Vulgate. Aristarchus was known for his selection of material

18.
Parmenides
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Parmenides of Elea was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, the single known work of Parmenides is a poem, On Nature, which has survived only in fragmentary form. In this poem, Parmenides describes two views of reality, in the way of truth, he explains how reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless, uniform, necessary, and unchanging. In the way of opinion, he explains the world of appearances, in which ones sensory faculties lead to conceptions which are false, Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Elea, which, according to Herodotus, had been founded shortly before 535 BC. He was descended from a wealthy and illustrious family,450 BC, which, if true, suggests a year of birth of c.515 BC. He was said to have been a pupil of Xenophanes, and regardless of whether they knew each other. Diogenes Laërtius also describes Parmenides as a disciple of Ameinias, son of Diochaites, the Pythagorean, the first hero cult of a philosopher we know of was Parmenides dedication of a heroon to his teacher Ameinias in Elea. Parmenides was the founder of the School of Elea, which also included Zeno of Elea, of his life in Elea, it was said that he had written the laws of the city. His most important pupil was Zeno, who according to Plato was 25 years his junior, Parmenides had a large influence on Plato, who not only named a dialogue, Parmenides, after him, but always spoke of him with veneration. William Smith also wrote in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Reason is our guide, on the latter the eye that does not catch the object and re-echoing hearing. Thought and that which is thought of coinciding, the passages of Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and others. Parmenides is one of the most significant of the pre-Socratic philosophers and his single known work, a poem conventionally titled On Nature, has survived only in fragments. Approximately 160 verses remain today from a total that was probably near 800. The poem was divided into three parts, A proem, which introduced the entire work, A section known as The Way of Truth. The proem is a sequence in which the narrator travels beyond the beaten paths of mortal men to receive a revelation from an unnamed goddess on the nature of reality. Aletheia, an estimated 90% of which has survived, and doxa, in the proem, Parmenides describes the journey of the poet, escorted by maidens, from the ordinary daytime world to a strange destination, outside our human paths. Carried in a chariot, and attended by the daughters of Helios the Sun. The goddess resides in a well-known mythological space, where Night and its essential character is that here all opposites are undivided, or one

19.
Plato
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Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries, Platos entire work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato laid the foundations of Western philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead once noted, the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. In addition to being a figure for Western science, philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche, amongst other scholars, called Christianity, Platonism for the people, Plato was the innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy, which originate with him. He was not the first thinker or writer to whom the word “philosopher” should be applied, few other authors in the history of Western philosophy approximate him in depth and range, perhaps only Aristotle, Aquinas and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank. Due to a lack of surviving accounts, little is known about Platos early life, the philosopher came from one of the wealthiest and most politically active families in Athens. Ancient sources describe him as a bright though modest boy who excelled in his studies, the exact time and place of Platos birth are unknown, but it is certain that he belonged to an aristocratic and influential family. Based on ancient sources, most modern scholars believe that he was born in Athens or Aegina between 429 and 423 BCE. According to a tradition, reported by Diogenes Laertius, Ariston traced his descent from the king of Athens, Codrus. Platos mother was Perictione, whose family boasted of a relationship with the famous Athenian lawmaker, besides Plato himself, Ariston and Perictione had three other children, these were two sons, Adeimantus and Glaucon, and a daughter Potone, the mother of Speusippus. The brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon are mentioned in the Republic as sons of Ariston, and presumably brothers of Plato, but in a scenario in the Memorabilia, Xenophon confused the issue by presenting a Glaucon much younger than Plato. Then, at twenty-eight, Hermodorus says, went to Euclides in Megara, as Debra Nails argues, The text itself gives no reason to infer that Plato left immediately for Megara and implies the very opposite. Thus, Nails dates Platos birth to 424/423, another legend related that, when Plato was an infant, bees settled on his lips while he was sleeping, an augury of the sweetness of style in which he would discourse about philosophy. Ariston appears to have died in Platos childhood, although the dating of his death is difficult. Perictione then married Pyrilampes, her mothers brother, who had served many times as an ambassador to the Persian court and was a friend of Pericles, Pyrilampes had a son from a previous marriage, Demus, who was famous for his beauty. Perictione gave birth to Pyrilampes second son, Antiphon, the half-brother of Plato and these and other references suggest a considerable amount of family pride and enable us to reconstruct Platos family tree

20.
Aristotle
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Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, at seventeen or eighteen years of age, he joined Platos Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, teaching Alexander the Great gave Aristotle many opportunities and an abundance of supplies. He established a library in the Lyceum which aided in the production of many of his hundreds of books and he believed all peoples concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception. Aristotles views on natural sciences represent the groundwork underlying many of his works, Aristotles views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, some of Aristotles zoological observations, such as on the hectocotyl arm of the octopus, were not confirmed or refuted until the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as The First Teacher and his ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotles philosophy continue to be the object of academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues – Cicero described his style as a river of gold – it is thought that only around a third of his original output has survived. Aristotle, whose means the best purpose, was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Chalcidice. His father Nicomachus was the physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was orphaned at a young age, although there is little information on Aristotles childhood, he probably spent some time within the Macedonian palace, making his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Platos Academy and he remained there for nearly twenty years before leaving Athens in 348/47 BC. Aristotle then accompanied Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor, there, he traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Pythias, either Hermiass adoptive daughter or niece and she bore him a daughter, whom they also named Pythias. Soon after Hermias death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander in 343 BC, Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave not only to Alexander

21.
Stoicism
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Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished throughout the Roman and Greek world until the 3rd century AD. Stoicism is predominantly a philosophy of ethics which is informed by its system of logic. It was founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC. Because of this, the Stoics presented their philosophy as a way of life, to live a good life, one had to understand the rules of the natural order since they taught that everything was rooted in nature. Later Stoics—such as Seneca and Epictetus—emphasized that, because virtue is sufficient for happiness, from its founding, Stoic doctrine was popular during the Roman Empire—and its adherents included the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It later experienced a decline after Christianity became the religion in the 4th century. Over the centuries, it has seen revivals, notably in the Renaissance, the Stoics provided a unified account of the world, consisting of formal logic, monistic physics and naturalistic ethics. Of these, they emphasized ethics as the focus of human knowledge. A primary aspect of Stoicism involves improving the individuals ethical and moral well-being and this viewpoint was later described as Classical Pantheism. Beginning at around 301 BC, Zeno taught philosophy at the Stoa Poikile, Zenos ideas developed from those of the Cynics, whose founding father, Antisthenes, had been a disciple of Socrates. Zenos most influential follower was Chrysippus, who was responsible for the molding of what is now called Stoicism, later Roman Stoics focused on promoting a life in harmony within the universe, over which one has no direct control. Scholars usually divide the history of Stoicism into three phases, Early Stoa, from the founding of the school by Zeno to Antipater, middle Stoa, including Panaetius and Posidonius. Late Stoa, including Musonius Rufus, Seneca, Epictetus, no complete work by any Stoic philosopher survives from the first two phases of Stoicism. Only Roman texts from the Late Stoa survive, diodorus Cronus, who was one of Zenos teachers, is considered the philosopher who first introduced and developed an approach to logic now known as propositional logic. This is an approach to logic based on statements or propositions, rather than terms, later, Chrysippus developed a system that became known as Stoic logic and included a deductive system, Stoic Syllogistic, which was considered a rival to Aristotles Syllogistic. New interest in Stoic logic came in the 20th century, when important developments in logic were based on propositional logic, susanne Bobzien wrote, The many close similarities between Chrysippus philosophical logic and that of Gottlob Frege are especially striking. The Stoics held that all being – though not all things – is material and they accepted the distinction between concrete bodies and abstract ones, but rejected Aristotles belief that purely incorporeal being exists. Thus, they accepted Anaxagoras idea that if an object is hot, but, unlike Aristotle, they extended the idea to cover all accidents

22.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and an important figure of German idealism. He achieved wide renown in his day and, while primarily influential within the tradition of philosophy, has become increasingly influential in the analytic tradition as well. Although he remains a figure, his canonical stature within Western philosophy is universally recognized. His philosophy of spirit conceptually integrates psychology, the state, history, art, religion and his account of the master–slave dialectic has been highly influential, especially in 20th-century France. Hegel has been seen in the 20th century as the originator of the thesis, antithesis, synthesis triad, however, as an explicit phrase, Hegel has influenced many thinkers and writers whose own positions vary widely. Hegel was born on August 27,1770 in Stuttgart, in the Duchy of Württemberg in southwestern Germany, christened Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, he was known as Wilhelm to his close family. His father, Georg Ludwig, was Rentkammersekretär at the court of Karl Eugen, Hegels mother, Maria Magdalena Louisa, was the daughter of a lawyer at the High Court of Justice at the Württemberg court. She died of a fever when Hegel was thirteen. Hegel and his father caught the disease but narrowly survived. Hegel had a sister, Christiane Luise, and a brother, Georg Ludwig, at the age of three Hegel went to the German School. When he entered the Latin School two years later, he knew the first declension, having been taught it by his mother. In 1776, Hegel entered Stuttgarts gymnasium illustre, during his adolescence Hegel read voraciously, copying lengthy extracts in his diary. Authors he read include the poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and writers associated with the Enlightenment, such as Christian Garve, Hegels studies at the Gymnasium were concluded with his Abiturrede entitled The abortive state of art and scholarship in Turkey. At the age of eighteen Hegel entered the Tübinger Stift, where he had as roommates the poet Friedrich Hölderlin, sharing a dislike for what they regarded as the restrictive environment of the Seminary, the three became close friends and mutually influenced each others ideas. All greatly admired Hellenic civilization, and Hegel additionally steeped himself in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and they watched the unfolding of the French Revolution with shared enthusiasm. Schelling and Hölderlin immersed themselves in theoretical debates on Kantian philosophy, Hegel at this time envisaged his future as that of a Popularphilosoph, i. e. Having received his certificate from the Tübingen Seminary, Hegel became Hofmeister to an aristocratic family in Bern. During this period he composed the text which has known as the Life of Jesus

23.
Friedrich Engels
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Friedrich Engels was a German philosopher, social scientist, journalist, and businessman. He founded Marxist theory together with Karl Marx, in 1845, he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research in Manchester. In 1848, he co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Marx, though he also authored and co-authored many other works, after Marxs death, Engels edited the second and third volumes. Additionally, Engels organised Marxs notes on the Theories of Surplus Value and he also made contributions to family economics. Friedrich Engels was born on 28 November 1820 in Barmen, Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, Barmen was an expanding industrial metropolis, and Friedrich was the eldest son of a wealthy German cotton textile manufacturer. His father, Friedrich, Sr. was a Pietistic Protestant, as he grew up, however, he developed atheistic beliefs and his relationship with his parents became strained. His mother wrote to him of her concerns, She said that he had gone too far. She continued, You have paid more heed to other people, to strangers, God alone knows what I have felt and suffered of late. I was trembling when I picked up the newspaper and saw therein that a warrant was out for my sons arrest, when his mother wrote, Engels was in hiding in Brussels, Belgium, soon to make his way to Switzerland. In 1849, he returned to the Kingdom of Bavaria for the Baden, at 17, Friedrich had dropped out of high school due to family circumstances. He spent a year in Barmen, in 1838, his father sent the young man to work as a nonsalaried office clerk at a commercial house in Bremen. His parents expected that he would follow his father into a career in business and it would be some years before he joined the family firm. Whilst at Bremen, Engels began reading the philosophy of Hegel, in September 1838, he published his first work, a poem entitled The Bedouin, in the Bremisches Conversationsblatt No.40. He also engaged in literary and journalistic work. Also while at Bremen, Engels began writing newspaper articles critiquing the societal ills of industrialisation and he wrote under a pseudonym, Friedrich Oswald, to avoid connecting his life in a Pietist industrialist family with his provocative writings. In 1841, Engels joined the Prussian Army as a member of the Household Artillery and he was assigned to Berlin, where he attended university lectures at the University of Berlin and began to associate with groups of Young Hegelians. He anonymously published articles in the Rheinische Zeitung, exposing the poor employment, the editor of the Rheinische Zeitung was Karl Marx. Engels did not meet Marx until late November 1842, Engels acknowledged the influence of German philosophy on his intellectual development throughout his life

24.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869, Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life, and he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and he lived his remaining years in the care of his mother, and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, and died in 1900. Nietzsches body of work touched widely on art, philology, history, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from figures such as Schopenhauer, Wagner. His writing spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism, born on 15 October 1844, Nietzsche grew up in the small town of Röcken, near Leipzig, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He was named after King Frederick William IV of Prussia, who turned forty-nine on the day of Nietzsches birth, Nietzsches parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, a Lutheran pastor and former teacher, and Franziska Oehler, married in 1843, the year before their sons birth. They had two children, a daughter, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, born in 1846, and a second son, Ludwig Joseph. Nietzsches father died from an ailment in 1849, Ludwig Joseph died six months later. The family then moved to Naumburg, where they lived with Nietzsches maternal grandmother, after the death of Nietzsches grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house, now Nietzsche-Haus, a museum and Nietzsche study centre. Nietzsche attended a school and then, later, a private school, where he became friends with Gustav Krug, Rudolf Wagner. In 1854, he began to attend Domgymnasium in Naumburg, because his father had worked for the state the now-fatherless Nietzsche was offered a scholarship to study at the internationally recognized Schulpforta. He transferred and studied there from 1858 to 1864, becoming friends with Paul Deussen and he also found time to work on poems and musical compositions. Nietzsche led Germania, a music and literature club, during his summers in Naumburg. His end-of-semester exams in March 1864 showed a 1 in Religion and German, a 2a in Greek and Latin, a 2b in French, History, and Physics, while at Pforta, Nietzsche had a penchant for pursuing subjects that were considered unbecoming. The teacher who corrected the essay gave it a mark but commented that Nietzsche should concern himself in the future with healthier, more lucid. After graduation in September 1864, Nietzsche commenced studies in theology, for a short time he and Deussen became members of the Burschenschaft Frankonia. After one semester, he stopped his studies and lost his faith. In June 1865, at the age of 20, Nietzsche wrote to his sister Elisabeth, who was deeply religious, a letter regarding his loss of faith

25.
Martin Heidegger
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Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher and a seminal thinker in the Continental tradition and philosophical hermeneutics. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, he is acknowledged to be one of the most original. His first and best known book, Being and Time, though unfinished, is one of the philosophical works of the 20th century. Heidegger approached the question through an inquiry into the being that has an understanding of Being, and asks the question about it, namely, Human being, for Heidegger thinking is thinking about things originally discovered in our everyday practical engagements. The consequence of this is that our capacity to think cannot be the most central quality of our being because thinking is a reflecting upon this more original way of discovering the world. Heideggers later work includes criticisms of technologys instrumentalist understanding in the Western tradition as enframing, treating all of Nature as a reserve on call for human purposes. Heidegger was born in rural Meßkirch, Germany, the son of Johanna, raised a Roman Catholic, he was the son of the sexton of the village church that adhered to the First Vatican Council of 1870, which was observed mainly by the poorer class of Meßkirch. Heidegger was short and sinewy, with piercing eyes. He enjoyed outdoor pursuits, being proficient at skiing. In the two following, he worked first as an unsalaried Privatdozent. He served as a soldier during the year of World War I, working behind a desk. During the 1930s, critics of Heideggers espousal of a Nazi-style rhetoric of martial manliness noted the unheroic nature of his service in WWI, in 1923, Heidegger was elected to an extraordinary Professorship in Philosophy at the University of Marburg. His colleagues there included Rudolf Bultmann, Nicolai Hartmann, and Paul Natorp, Heideggers students at Marburg included Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Gerhard Krüger, Leo Strauss, Jacob Klein, Gunther Anders, and Hans Jonas. Following on from Aristotle, he began to develop in his lectures the main theme of his philosophy, the question of the sense of being. He extended the concept of subject to the dimension of history and concrete existence, which he found prefigured in such Christian thinkers as Saint Paul, Augustine of Hippo, Luther and he also read the works of Dilthey, Husserl, and Max Scheler. In 1927, Heidegger published his main work Sein und Zeit, when Husserl retired as Professor of Philosophy in 1928, Heidegger accepted Freiburgs election to be his successor, in spite of a counter-offer by Marburg. Heidegger remained at Freiburg im Breisgau for the rest of his life, declining a number of later offers and his students at Freiburg included Arendt, Günther Anders, Hans Jonas, Karl Löwith, Charles Malik, Herbert Marcuse and Ernst Nolte. Emmanuel Levinas attended his lecture courses during his stay in Freiburg in 1928, Heidegger was elected rector of the University on 21 April 1933, and joined the National Socialist German Workers Party on 1 May

26.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Alfred North Whitehead OM FRS was an English mathematician and philosopher. In his early career Whitehead wrote primarily on mathematics, logic and his most notable work in these fields is the three-volume Principia Mathematica, which he wrote with former student Bertrand Russell. Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to philosophy of science and he developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of western philosophy. Today Whiteheads philosophical works – particularly Process and Reality – are regarded as the texts of process philosophy. For this reason, one of the most promising applications of Whiteheads thought in recent years has been in the area of ecological civilization, cobb, Jr. Alfred North Whitehead was born in Ramsgate, Kent, England, in 1861. His father, Alfred Whitehead, was a minister and schoolmaster of Chatham House Academy, Whitehead himself recalled both of them as being very successful schoolmasters, but that his grandfather was the more extraordinary man. Whiteheads mother was Maria Sarah Whitehead, formerly Maria Sarah Buckmaster, Whitehead was apparently not particularly close with his mother, as he never mentioned her in any of his writings, and there is evidence that Whiteheads wife, Evelyn, had a low opinion of her. Whitehead was educated at Sherborne School, Dorset, then considered one of the best public schools in the country and his childhood was described as over-protected, but when at school he excelled in sports and mathematics and was head prefect of his class. In 1880, Whitehead began attending Trinity College, Cambridge, and his academic advisor was Edward John Routh. He earned his BA from Trinity in 1884, and graduated as fourth wrangler, in 1890, Whitehead married Evelyn Wade, an Irish woman raised in France, they had a daughter, Jessie Whitehead, and two sons, Thomas North Whitehead and Eric Whitehead. Eric Whitehead died in action serving in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I at the age of 19. In 1910, Whitehead resigned his Senior Lectureship in Mathematics at Trinity, toward the end of his time in England, Whitehead turned his attention to philosophy. Though he had no advanced training in philosophy, his work soon became highly regarded. After publishing The Concept of Nature in 1920, he served as president of the Aristotelian Society from 1922 to 1923, in 1924, Henry Osborn Taylor invited the 63-year-old Whitehead to join the faculty at Harvard University as a professor of philosophy. During his time at Harvard, Whitehead produced his most important philosophical contributions, in 1925, he wrote Science and the Modern World, which was immediately hailed as an alternative to the Cartesian dualism that plagued popular science. A few years later, he published his seminal work Process and Reality, the Whiteheads spent the rest of their lives in the United States. Alfred North retired from Harvard in 1937 and remained in Cambridge, the two volume biography of Whitehead by Victor Lowe is the most definitive presentation of the life of Whitehead. However, many details of Whiteheads life remain obscure because he left no Nachlass, additionally, Whitehead was known for his almost fanatical belief in the right to privacy, and for writing very few personal letters of the kind that would help to gain insight on his life

27.
Oswald Spengler
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Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler was a German historian and philosopher of history whose interests included mathematics, science, and art. He is best known for his book The Decline of the West, published in 1918 and 1922, Spenglers civilization model postulates that any civilization is a superorganism with a limited and predictable lifespan. He wrote extensively throughout World War I and the interwar period and his other writings made little impact outside Germany. In 1920 Spengler produced Prussiandom and Socialism, which argued for an organic, Oswald Spengler was born in 1880 in Blankenburg as the second child of Bernhard and Pauline Spengler. Oswalds elder brother was born prematurely in 1879, when his mother tried to move a heavy laundry basket, Oswald was born ten months after his brothers death. His younger sisters were Adele, Gertrud, and Hildegard, oswalds paternal grandfather, Theodor Spengler, was a metallurgical inspector in Altenbrak. On 26 May 1799, Friedrich Wilhelm Grantzow, an apprentice in Berlin. Shortly before the wedding, Bräunchen Moses was baptized as Johanna Elisabeth Anspachin, like the Grantzows in general, Pauline was of a Bohemian disposition, and, before marrying Bernhard Spengler, accompanied her dancer sister on tours. She was the least talented member of the Grantzow family, in appearance, she was plump and a bit unseemly. Her temperament, which Oswald inherited, complemented her appearance and frail physique, she was moody, irritable, when Oswald was ten years of age, his family moved to the university city of Halle. Here he received an education at the local Gymnasium, studying Greek, Latin, mathematics. Here, too, he developed his propensity for the poetry, drama. He even experimented with a few artistic creations, some of which still survive, of Goethe and Nietzsche, Spengler later stated that I feel urged to name once more those to whom I owe practically everything, Goethe and Nietzsche. Goethe gave me method, Nietzsche the questioning faculty, after his fathers death in 1901 Spengler attended several universities as a private scholar, taking courses in a wide range of subjects. In 1903, he failed his doctoral thesis on Heraclitus because of insufficient references and he eventually received his Ph. D. from Halle on 6 April 1904. In December 1904, he set to write the secondary dissertation necessary to qualify as a school teacher. This became The Development of the Organ of Sight in the Higher Realms of the Animal Kingdom and it was approved and he received his teaching certificate. In 1905 Spengler suffered a nervous breakdown, biographers report his life as a teacher was uneventful

28.
Karl Popper
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Sir Karl Raimund Popper CH FBA FRS was an Austrian-British philosopher and professor. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century, in political discourse, he is known for his vigorous defence of liberal democracy and the principles of social criticism that he came to believe made a flourishing open society possible. Karl Popper was born in Vienna in 1902, to upper middle-class parents, karls father Simon Siegmund Carl Popper was a lawyer from Bohemia and a doctor of law at the Vienna University, and mother Jenny Schiff was of Silesian and Hungarian descent. Karl Poppers uncle was the Austrian philosopher Josef Popper-Lynkeus and his father was a bibliophile who had 12, 000–14,000 volumes in his personal library and took an interest in philosophy, the classics, and social and political issues. Popper inherited both the library and the disposition from him, later, he would describe the atmosphere of his upbringing as having been decidedly bookish. Popper left school at the age of 16 and attended lectures in mathematics, physics, philosophy, psychology, in 1919, Popper became attracted by Marxism and subsequently joined the Association of Socialist School Students. He also became a member of the Social Democratic Workers Party of Austria and he worked in street construction for a short amount of time, but was unable to cope with the heavy labour. Continuing to attend university as a guest student, he started an apprenticeship as cabinetmaker and he was dreaming at that time of starting a daycare facility for children, for which he assumed the ability to make furniture might be useful. After that he did service in one of psychoanalyst Alfred Adlers clinics for children. In 1922, he did his matura by way of a second chance education and he completed his examination as an elementary teacher in 1924 and started working at an after-school care club for socially endangered children. In 1925, he went to the newly founded Pädagogisches Institut and continued studying philosophy, around that time he started courting Josefine Anna Henninger, who later became his wife. In 1928, he earned a doctorate in psychology, under the supervision of Karl Bühler and his dissertation was entitled Die Methodenfrage der Denkpsychologie. In 1929, he obtained the authorisation to teach mathematics and physics in secondary school and he married his colleague Josefine Anna Henninger in 1930. Fearing the rise of Nazism and the threat of the Anschluss, he started to use the evenings and he needed to publish one to get some academic position in a country that was safe for people of Jewish descent. However, he ended up not publishing the work, but a condensed version of it with some new material, Logik der Forschung. Here, he criticised psychologism, naturalism, inductionism, and logical positivism, in 1935 and 1936, he took unpaid leave to go to the United Kingdom for a study visit. It was here that he wrote his influential work The Open Society, in Dunedin he met the Professor of Physiology John Carew Eccles and formed a lifelong friendship with him. In 1946, after the Second World War, he moved to the United Kingdom to become reader in logic and scientific method at the London School of Economics, Three years later, in 1949, he was appointed professor of logic and scientific method at the University of London

29.
Terence McKenna
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Terence Kemp McKenna was an American ethnobotanist, mystic, psychonaut, lecturer, author, and an advocate for the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants. He was called the Timothy Leary of the 90s, one of the authorities on the ontological foundations of shamanism. His promotion of novelty theory and its connection to the Maya calendar is credited as one of the leading to the widespread beliefs about 2012 eschatology. Terence McKenna was born and raised in Paonia, Colorado, with Irish ancestry on his fathers side of the family, McKenna developed a hobby of fossil-hunting in his youth and from this he acquired a deep scientific appreciation of nature. He also became interested in psychology at an age, reading Carl Jungs book Psychology. At age 16 McKenna moved to Los Altos, California to live with friends for a year. He finished high school in Lancaster, California, in 1965, McKenna enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley and was accepted into the Tussman Experimental College. In 1967, while in college, he discovered and began studying shamanism through the study of Tibetan folk religion and that same year, which he called his opium and kabbala phase he traveled to Jerusalem, where he met Kathleen Harrison, who would later become his wife. In 1969, McKenna traveled to Nepal led by his interest in Tibetan painting and he sought out shaman of the Bon tradition, which predated Tibetan Buddhism, trying to learn more about the shamanic use of visionary plants. During his time there, he studied the Tibetan language and worked as a hashish smuggler. He then wandered through southeast Asia viewing ruins, and spent time as a butterfly collector in Indonesia. Instead of oo-koo-hé they found fields full of gigantic Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms, McKenna claimed the experiment put him in contact with Logos, an informative, divine voice he believed was universal to visionary religious experience. The voices reputed revelations and his brothers simultaneous psychedelic experience prompted him to explore the structure of a form of the I Ching. During their stay in the Amazon, McKenna also became involved with his interpreter. In 1972, McKenna returned to U. C, Berkeley to finish his studies and in 1975, he graduated with a degree in ecology, shamanism, and conservation of natural resources. In the autumn of 1975, after parting with his girlfriend Ev earlier in the year, McKenna began a relationship with his future wife and the mother of his two children, Kathleen Harrison. Soon after graduating, McKenna and Dennis published a book inspired by their Amazon experiences, The Invisible Landscape, Mind, Hallucinogens, the brothers experiences in the Amazon would later be the main focus of McKennas book True Hallucinations, published in 1993. McKenna also began lecturing locally around Berkeley and started appearing on underground radio stations. T

30.
Walter Pater
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Walter Horatio Pater was an English essayist, literary and art critic, and fiction writer, regarded as one of the great stylists. His works on Renaissance subjects were popular but controversial, reflecting his lost belief in Christianity. Born in Stepney in Londons East End, Walter Pater was the son of Richard Glode Pater. Dr Pater died while Walter was an infant and the moved to Enfield. Walter attended Enfield Grammar School and was tutored by the headmaster. In 1853, he was sent to The Kings School, Canterbury and he was fourteen when his mother, Maria Pater, died in 1854. As a schoolboy Pater read John Ruskins Modern Painters, which helped inspire his lifelong attraction to the study of art and he gained a school exhibition, with which he proceeded in 1858 to Queens College, Oxford. As an undergraduate, Pater was a man, with literary. Flaubert, Gautier, Baudelaire and Swinburne were among his early favourites, visiting his aunt and sisters in Germany during the vacations, he learned German and began to read Hegel and the German philosophers. The scholar Benjamin Jowett was struck by his potential and offered to give him private lessons, in Jowetts classes, however, Pater was a disappointment, he took a Second in literae humaniores in 1862. As a boy Pater had cherished the idea of entering the Anglican clergy, in spite of his inclination towards the ritual and aesthetic elements of the church, he had little interest in Christian doctrine and did not pursue ordination. After graduating, Pater remained in Oxford and taught Classics and Philosophy to private students and he became acutely interested in art and literature, and started to write articles and criticism. First to be printed was an essay on the metaphysics of Coleridge, in the following years the Fortnightly Review printed his essays on Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, and Michelangelo. The last three, with similar pieces, were collected in his Studies in the History of the Renaissance, renamed in the second and later editions The Renaissance, Studies in Art. The Leonardo essay contains Paters celebrated reverie on the Mona Lisa, an essay on The School of Giorgione, added to the third edition, contains Paters much-quoted maxim All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music. The final paragraphs of the 1868 William Morris essay were reworked as the books Conclusion and this brief Conclusion was to be Paters most influential – and controversial – publication. It asserts that our lives are made up of scientific processes and elemental forces in perpetual motion, renewed from moment to moment. Continual vanishing away, that strange, perpetual weaving and unweaving of ourselves, forming habits means failure on our part, for habit connotes the stereotypical

31.
D. H. Lawrence
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David Herbert Richards D. H. Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter. His collected works represent, among other things, a reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity. Some of the issues Lawrence explores are sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity, at the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in a notice, challenged this widely held view. Later, Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his seriousness, placing much of Lawrences fiction within the canonical great tradition of the English novel. The house in which he was born, in Eastwood, 8a Victoria Street, is now the D. H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum and his working-class background and the tensions between his parents provided the raw material for a number of his early works. The young Lawrence attended Beauvale Board School from 1891 until 1898 and he left in 1901, working for three months as a junior clerk at Haywoods surgical appliances factory, but a severe bout of pneumonia ended this career. During his convalescence he often visited Haggs Farm, the home of the Chambers family, an important aspect of this relationship with Chambers and other adolescent acquaintances was a shared love of books, an interest that lasted throughout Lawrences life. In the years 1902 to 1906 Lawrence served as a teacher at the British School. He went on to become a student and received a teaching certificate from University College, Nottingham. During these early years he was working on his first poems, some stories, and a draft of a novel, Laetitia. At the end of 1907 he won a short story competition in the Nottingham Guardian, in the autumn of 1908 the newly qualified Lawrence left his childhood home for London. While teaching in Davidson Road School, Croydon, he continued writing, Jessie Chambers submitted some of Lawrences early poetry to Ford Madox Ford, editor of the influential The English Review. Hueffer then commissioned the story Odour of Chrysanthemums which, when published in magazine, encouraged Heinemann. His career as an author now began in earnest, although he taught for another year. Shortly after the final proofs of his first published novel, The White Peacock, appeared in 1910, the young man was devastated, and he was to describe the next few months as his sick year. The hurt caused to Jessie by this and finally by her portrayal in the novel caused the end of their friendship and after it was published they never spoke to each other again. In 1911 Lawrence was introduced to Edward Garnett, a reader, who acted as a mentor, provided further encouragement

32.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population

33.
Pre-Socratic philosophy
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Pre-Socratic philosophy is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates and schools contemporary to Socrates that were not influenced by him. In Classical antiquity, the Presocratic philosophers were called physiologoi, Aristotle called them physikoi because they sought natural explanations for phenomena, as opposed to the earlier theologoi, whose philosophical basis was supernatural. Diogenes Laërtius divides the physiologoi into two groups, Ionian, led by Anaximander, and the Italiote, led by Pythagoras, hermann Diels popularized the term pre-socratic in Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker in 1903. However, the term pre-Sokratic was in use as early as George Grotes Plato, edouard Zeller was also important in dividing thought before and after Socrates. Major analyses of pre-Socratic thought have been made by Gregory Vlastos, Jonathan Barnes and it may sometimes be difficult to determine the actual line of argument some Presocratics used in supporting their particular views. While most of them produced significant texts, none of the texts has survived in complete form, all that is available are quotations by later philosophers and historians, and the occasional textual fragment. The Presocratic philosophers rejected traditional mythological explanations of the phenomena they saw them in favor of more rational explanations. These philosophers asked questions about the essence of things, From where does everything come, how do we explain the plurality of things found in nature. How might we describe nature mathematically, others concentrated on defining problems and paradoxes that became the basis for later mathematical, scientific and philosophic study. Later philosophers rejected many of the answers the early Greek philosophers provided, furthermore, the cosmologies proposed by them have been updated by later developments in science. Western philosophy began in ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE, the Presocratics were mostly from the eastern or western fringes of the Greek world. Their efforts were directed to the investigation of the ultimate basis and they sought the material principle of things, and the method of their origin and disappearance. As the first philosophers, they emphasized the unity of things. Only fragments of the writings of the presocratics survive. The knowledge we have of them derives from accounts - known as doxography - of later philosophical writers, the first Presocratic philosophers were from Miletus on the western coast of Anatolia. Thales is reputedly the father of Greek philosophy, he declared water to be the basis of all things, next came Anaximander, the first writer on philosophy. He assumed as the first principle an undefined, unlimited substance without qualities, out of which the primary opposites, hot and cold, moist and dry, became differentiated. His younger contemporary, Anaximenes, took for his air, conceiving it as modified, by thickening and thinning, into fire, wind, clouds, water

34.
Greek philosophy
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Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC and continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Ancient Greece was part of the Roman Empire. Philosophy was used to sense out of the world in a non-religious way. It dealt with a variety of subjects, including political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric. Many philosophers around the world agree that Greek philosophy has influenced much of Western culture since its inception, alfred North Whitehead once noted, The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. Clear, unbroken lines of lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers to Early Islamic philosophy, the European Renaissance. Some claim that Greek philosophy, in turn, was influenced by the wisdom literature. But they taught themselves to reason, Philosophy as we understand it is a Greek creation. Subsequent philosophic tradition was so influenced by Socrates as presented by Plato that it is conventional to refer to philosophy developed prior to Socrates as pre-Socratic philosophy. The periods following this, up to and after the wars of Alexander the Great, are those of classical Greek, the pre-Socratics were primarily concerned with cosmology, ontology and mathematics. They were distinguished from non-philosophers insofar as they rejected mythological explanations in favor of reasoned discourse, Thales of Miletus, regarded by Aristotle as the first philosopher, held that all things arise from water. It is not because he gave a cosmogony that John Burnet calls him the first man of science, according to tradition, Thales was able to predict an eclipse and taught the Egyptians how to measure the height of the pyramids. He began from the observation that the world seems to consist of opposites, therefore, they cannot truly be opposites but rather must both be manifestations of some underlying unity that is neither. This underlying unity could not be any of the classical elements, for example, water is wet, the opposite of dry, while fire is dry, the opposite of wet. Anaximenes in turn held that the arche was air, although John Burnet argues that by this he meant that it was a transparent mist, the aether. Xenophanes was born in Ionia, where the Milesian school was at its most powerful, Burnet says that Xenophanes was not, however, a scientific man, with many of his naturalistic explanations having no further support than that they render the Homeric gods superfluous or foolish. He has been claimed as an influence on Eleatic philosophy, although that is disputed, and a precursor to Epicurus, a representative of a total break between science and religion. Pythagoras lived at roughly the time that Xenophanes did and, in contrast to the latter. Parmenides of Elea cast his philosophy against those who held it is and is not the same, and all travel in opposite directions, —presumably referring to Heraclitus

35.
Universe
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The Universe is all of time and space and its contents. It includes planets, moons, minor planets, stars, galaxies, the contents of intergalactic space, the size of the entire Universe is unknown. The earliest scientific models of the Universe were developed by ancient Greek and Indian philosophers and were geocentric, over the centuries, more precise astronomical observations led Nicolaus Copernicus to develop the heliocentric model with the Sun at the center of the Solar System. In developing the law of gravitation, Sir Isaac Newton built upon Copernicuss work as well as observations by Tycho Brahe. Further observational improvements led to the realization that our Solar System is located in the Milky Way galaxy and it is assumed that galaxies are distributed uniformly and the same in all directions, meaning that the Universe has neither an edge nor a center. Discoveries in the early 20th century have suggested that the Universe had a beginning, the majority of mass in the Universe appears to exist in an unknown form called dark matter. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the Universe, under this theory, space and time emerged together 13. 799±0.021 billion years ago with a fixed amount of energy and matter that has become less dense as the Universe has expanded. After the initial expansion, the Universe cooled, allowing the first subatomic particles to form, giant clouds later merged through gravity to form galaxies, stars, and everything else seen today. Some physicists have suggested various multiverse hypotheses, in which the Universe might be one among many universes that likewise exist, the Universe can be defined as everything that exists, everything that has existed, and everything that will exist. According to our current understanding, the Universe consists of spacetime, forms of energy, the Universe encompasses all of life, all of history, and some philosophers and scientists suggest that it even encompasses ideas such as mathematics and logic. The word universe derives from the Old French word univers, which in turn derives from the Latin word universum, the Latin word was used by Cicero and later Latin authors in many of the same senses as the modern English word is used. Another synonym was ὁ κόσμος ho kósmos, synonyms are also found in Latin authors and survive in modern languages, e. g. the German words Das All, Weltall, and Natur for Universe. The same synonyms are found in English, such as everything, the cosmos, the world, the prevailing model for the evolution of the Universe is the Big Bang theory. The Big Bang model states that the earliest state of the Universe was extremely hot and dense, the model is based on general relativity and on simplifying assumptions such as homogeneity and isotropy of space. The Big Bang model accounts for such as the correlation of distance and redshift of galaxies, the ratio of the number of hydrogen to helium atoms. The initial hot, dense state is called the Planck epoch, after the Planck epoch and inflation came the quark, hadron, and lepton epochs. Together, these epochs encompassed less than 10 seconds of time following the Big Bang, the observed abundance of the elements can be explained by combining the overall expansion of space with nuclear and atomic physics. As the Universe expands, the density of electromagnetic radiation decreases more quickly than does that of matter because the energy of a photon decreases with its wavelength

36.
Being
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Being is an extremely broad concept encompassing objective and subjective features of reality and existence. Anything that partakes in being is called a being, though often this usage is limited to entities that have subjectivity. The notion of being has, inevitably, been elusive and controversial in the history of philosophy, as an example of efforts in recent times, Martin Heidegger adopted German terms like Dasein to articulate the topic. Several modern approaches build on such continental European exemplars as Heidegger, and apply metaphysical results to the understanding of human psychology and the human condition generally. By contrast, in mainstream Analytical philosophy the topic is more confined to abstract investigation, in the work of influential theorists as W. V. O. Quine. One most fundamental question that continues to exercise philosophers is put by William James, from nothing to being there is no logical bridge. The deficit of such a bridge was first encountered in history by the Pre-Socratic philosophers during the process of evolving a classification of all beings, Aristotle, who wrote after the Pre-Socratics, applies the term category to ten highest-level classes. They comprise one category of substance existing independently and nine categories of accidents, in Aristotle, substances are to be clarified by stating their definition, a note expressing a larger class followed by further notes expressing specific differences within the class. The substance so defined was a species, for example, the species, man, may be defined as an animal that is rational. As the difference is potential within the genus, that is, an animal may or may not be rational, the difference is not identical to, and may be distinct from, the genus. Applied to being, the system fails to arrive at a definition for the reason that no difference can be found. The species, the genus, and the difference are all equally being, the genus cannot be nothing because nothing is not a class of everything. The trivial solution that being is being added to nothing is only a tautology, there is no simpler intermediary between being and non-being that explains and classifies being. Pre-Socratic reaction to this deficit was varied, as substance theorists they accepted a priori the hypothesis that appearances are deceiving, that reality is to be reached through reasoning. Parmenides reasoned that if everything is identical to being and being is a category of the thing then there can be neither differences between things nor any change. To be different, or to change, would amount to becoming or being non-being, therefore, being is a homogeneous and non-differentiated sphere and the appearance of beings is illusory. Heraclitus, on the hand, foreshadowed modern thought by denying existence. Reality does not exist, it flows, and beings are an illusion upon the flow, what being is, is just the question, what is substance

37.
Ontology
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Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence or reality as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. Although ontology as an enterprise is highly hypothetical, it also has practical application in information science and technology. Some philosophers, notably of the Platonic school, contend that all refer to existent entities. Other philosophers contend that nouns do not always name entities, between these poles of realism and nominalism, stand a variety of other positions. An ontology may give an account of which refer to entities, which do not, why. Principal questions of ontology include, What can be said to exist, into what categories, if any, can we sort existing things. What are the meanings of being, what are the various modes of being of entities. Various philosophers have provided different answers to these questions, one common approach involves dividing the extant subjects and predicates into groups called categories. Such an understanding of ontological categories, however, is merely taxonomic, what does it mean for a being to be. Is existence a genus or general class that is divided up by specific differences. Which entities, if any, are fundamental, how do the properties of an object relate to the object itself. What features are the essential, as opposed to merely accidental attributes of a given object, how many levels of existence or ontological levels are there. Can one give an account of what it means to say that an object exists. Can one give an account of what it means to say that an entity exists. What constitutes the identity of an object, when does an object go out of existence, as opposed to merely changing. Do beings exist other than in the modes of objectivity and subjectivity, i. e. is the subject/object split of modern philosophy inevitable. e. Being, that which is, which is the present participle of the verb εἰμί, eimí, i. e. to be, I am, and -λογία, -logia, i. e. logical discourse. The first occurrence in English of ontology as recorded by the OED came in a work by Gideon Harvey, Archelogia philosophica nova, or, New principles of Philosophy

38.
Anatolia
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Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters Geographical Dictionary, under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia

39.
Hellenistic period
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It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decadence or degeneration, compared to the enlightenment of the Greek Classical era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, the Septuagint, Greek science was advanced by the works of the mathematician Euclid and the polymath Archimedes. The religious sphere expanded to include new gods such as the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, eastern deities such as Attis and Cybele, the Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization which established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa. This resulted in the export of Greek culture and language to new realms. Equally, however, these new kingdoms were influenced by the cultures, adopting local practices where beneficial, necessary. Hellenistic culture thus represents a fusion of the Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East, Middle East and this mixture gave rise to a common Attic-based Greek dialect, known as Koine Greek, which became the lingua franca through the Hellenistic world. Scholars and historians are divided as to what event signals the end of the Hellenistic era, Hellenistic is distinguished from Hellenic in that the first encompasses the entire sphere of direct ancient Greek influence, while the latter refers to Greece itself. The word originated from the German term hellenistisch, from Ancient Greek Ἑλληνιστής, from Ἑλλάς, Hellenistic is a modern word and a 19th-century concept, the idea of a Hellenistic period did not exist in Ancient Greece. Although words related in form or meaning, e. g, the major issue with the term Hellenistic lies in its convenience, as the spread of Greek culture was not the generalized phenomenon that the term implies. Some areas of the world were more affected by Greek influences than others. The Greek population and the population did not always mix, the Greeks moved and brought their own culture. While a few fragments exist, there is no surviving historical work which dates to the hundred years following Alexanders death. The works of the major Hellenistic historians Hieronymus of Cardia, Duris of Samos, the earliest and most credible surviving source for the Hellenistic period is Polybius of Megalopolis, a statesman of the Achaean League until 168 BC when he was forced to go to Rome as a hostage. His Histories eventually grew to a length of forty books, covering the years 220 to 167 BC, another important source, Plutarchs Parallel Lives though more preoccupied with issues of personal character and morality, outlines the history of important Hellenistic figures. Appian of Alexandria wrote a history of the Roman empire that includes information of some Hellenistic kingdoms, other sources include Justins epitome of Pompeius Trogus Historiae Philipicae and a summary of Arrians Events after Alexander, by Photios I of Constantinople. Lesser supplementary sources include Curtius Rufus, Pausanias, Pliny, in the field of philosophy, Diogenes Laertius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is the main source. Ancient Greece had traditionally been a collection of fiercely independent city-states. After the Peloponnesian War, Greece had fallen under a Spartan hegemony, in which Sparta was pre-eminent but not all-powerful

40.
Olympiad
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An Olympiad is a period of four years associated with the Olympic Games of the Ancient Greeks. During the Hellenistic period, beginning with Ephorus, it was used as a calendar epoch, by this reckoning, the first Olympiad lasted from the summer of 776 BC to that of 772 BC. By extrapolation to the Gregorian calendar, the 1st year of the 699th Olympiad begins in mid-summer 2017, a modern Olympiad refers to a four-year period beginning January 1 of a year in which the Summer Olympics are due to occur. The first modern Olympiad began in 1896, the second in 1900, an Olympiad was a period of four years. Example, Olympiad 140, year 1 = 220/219 BC, year 2 = 219/218 BC, year 3 = 218/217 BC, the first to do so consistently was Timaeus of Tauromenium in the third century BC. In the 2nd century AD, Phlegon of Tralles summarised the events of each Olympiad in a book called Olympiads, christian chroniclers continued to use this Greek system of dating as a way of synchronising biblical events with Greek and Roman history. In the 3rd century AD, Sextus Julius Africanus compiled a list of Olympic victors up to 217 BC, early historians sometimes used the names of Olympic victors as a method of dating events to a specific year. For instance, Thucydides says in his account of the year 428 BC and it was in this year that king Xerxes made his campaign against Greece. An Olympiad started with the games, which were held at the beginning of the Olympic new year, though the games were held without interruption, on more than one occasion they were held by others than the Eleians. The Eleians declared such games Anolympiads, but it is assumed the winners were nevertheless recorded, during the 3rd century AD, records of the games are so scanty that historians are not certain whether after 261 they were still held every four years. During the early years of the Olympiad, any physical benefit deriving from a sport was banned, some winners were recorded though, until the last Olympiad of 393AD. In 394, Roman Emperor Theodosius I outlawed the games at Olympia as pagan, though it would have been possible to continue the reckoning by just counting four-year periods, by the middle of the 5th century AD reckoning by Olympiads had become disused. For the modern Olympics the term was used to indicate the games themselves. The modern Olympiad is a period of four consecutive years, beginning on the first of January of the first year. The Olympiads are numbered consecutively from the first Games of the Olympiad celebrated in Athens in 1896, the XXXI Olympiad began on January 1,2016 and will end on December 31,2019. The Summer Olympics are more correctly referred to as the Games of the Olympiad, for example, The first Winter Games, in 1924, were not designated as Winter Games of the VIII Olympiad, but as the I Winter Olympic Games. The 1936 Summer Games were the Games of the XI Olympiad, after the 1940 and 1944 Summer Games were canceled due to World War II, the Games resumed in 1948 as the Games of the XIV Olympiad. However, the 1936 Winter Games were the IV Winter Olympic Games, indeed, at least one IOC-published article has applied this nomenclature as well

Coin from ancient Thasos showing Satyr and nymph, dated to late fifth century BC. Archilochus was involved in the Parian colonization of Thasos about two centuries before the coin was minted. His poetry includes vivid accounts of life as a warrior, seafarer and lover.

A small papyrus scrap first published in 1908 which is derived from the same ancient manuscript of Archilochus that yielded the most recent discovery (P.Oxy. VI 854, 2nd century CE).

Relief representing Anaximander (Roma, Museo Nazionale Romano). Probably Roman copy of an earlier Greek original. This is the only existing image of Anaximander from the ancient world.

Image: Anaximander

Illustration of Anaximander's models of the universe. On the left, daytime in summer; on the right, nighttime in winter. However, Anaximander pictured the earth as a truncated cylinder, not as a sphere as shown.